Caring for 2 Children as Her Health and Finances Deteriorate

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Laura Gentile at the Rina Shkolnik Food Pantry in Cedarhurst, N.Y., in October. Having groceries in the refrigerator has made a difference in a home filled with difficulty, she said.CreditCreditAn Rong Xu for The New York Times

Packing her cart with fresh peppers, canned tuna, pretzels and cake, she said the food pantry here on Long Island was the first where she felt like any other grocery shopper. It was welcome relief from the long lines and piles of unorganized food at other food banks.

“You don’t feel destroyed just walking in,” Ms. Gentile, 45, said. “Renee greets you when you come in, and you can pick out what you want, what you need. You’re not just handed something.”

Renee Harris, the food pantry coordinator, said she knew from experience the importance of creating a welcoming environment. When her husband lost his job in 2009, she found herself shopping at food banks for the first time in her life.

“I felt the employees watching me — like I might try to steal something,” Ms. Harris said. “And I ran out of the store crying.”

Then one day she stopped by the Rina Shkolnik Kosher Food Pantry. When her family got back on its feet a few years later, Ms. Harris started working there, hoping to replicate her experience for the 350 families who shop at the pantry each month. Emulating a traditional grocery store, the food bank is organized by food groups. Shoppers carry items home in marked bags donated by nearby shops.

Ms. Gentile receives $182 a month in food stamps to feed herself, a 20-year-old son, Malliki Outlaw, and a 19-year-old daughter, Nevaeh Outlaw, who both have mental illnesses, she said. Once a month, she fills her cart with food from the pantry, a program of the Marion & Aaron Gural J.C.C., a beneficiary of UJA-Federation of New York, one of the eight organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund.

Having groceries in the refrigerator has made a difference in a home filled with difficulty, she said.

At 19, Ms. Gentile and her young son were living with her parents, who she said had forced her to get an abortion when she became pregnant again as a condition for staying under their roof. She later moved out and became pregnant again while in an abusive relationship, she said, and gave birth to Malliki. Months later, she found out she was expecting twins. Two months along, she miscarried one of them. She named the surviving twin Nevaeh — heaven spelled backward.

Abuse marks Ms. Gentile’s body. A white scar runs along her hand — the lasting effect of being stabbed by a sharp piece of plastic. She has also endured mental trauma. Ms. Gentile said she had lost count of the number of times her children had been hospitalized or institutionalized, because of the harm they were causing their mother and themselves. But she said the trouble had started after their father died in 2002.

Ms. Gentile takes care of both children, who still live at home. Her son has bipolar disorder, and her daughter has anxiety, depression and mild intellectual disabilities. She said that medication and therapy had helped manage their symptoms, and that they had not been hospitalized since 2009.

But Ms. Gentile’s own health problems, including depression, high blood pressure and arthritis, exacerbated by years of abuse, have worsened.

She had an operation to remove her ovaries because of a precancerous cyst. Doctors have told her that she needs to have gallstones removed and both knees replaced, but she cannot afford the operations and fears leaving her children for the duration of the recovery without another caregiver. Injections would ease the pain in her arthritic knees, but her insurance does not cover the cost.

Ms. Gentile, who worked as a medical office assistant and coordinator for a physical therapy clinic, stopped working in 2008 and started receiving Supplemental Security Income a year later. The family now subsists on a cumulative $1,434 in Supplemental Security Income. The family’s benefits had previously been cut by $733 when her son’s Supplemental Security benefits were terminated in April, because proper documentation was not submitted. The benefits were reinstated this month but reduced by $30.

In 2009 she moved from Queens Village to Far Rockaway in Queens. She sleeps on a makeshift bed and gives her children the two bedrooms. After a public housing subsidy, she pays $410 a month for rent.

Marion & Aaron Gural J.C.C. provided Ms. Gentile and her children with $630 from the Neediest Cases Fund to cover her December 2015 rent and $650 to help with rent again in September.

At the food pantry, Ms. Gentile walked to the front to check out. Ms. Harris warmly pointed out a bag of grapes, adding it and a few other items to Ms. Gentile’s cart. She reminded her to return in a few weeks for a Thanksgiving turkey.

As Ms. Gentile left, grocery bags in both hands, she was smiling.

Correction:

An earlier version of this article misstated the amount of rent Ms. Gentile is responsible for. After a public housing subsidy, she pays $410 a month, not $1,087.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A18 of the New York edition with the headline: Taking Care of Two Children as Her Health and Finances Deteriorate. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe